BRAVE Review

BRAVE Review

By Darin Skaggs

Often when a director makes several good films, filmgoers get on board with that filmmaker.  Then when a new one comes out they go and see the film no matter if they think it would be good or bad.  Examples of this for me are Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson.  The film studio Pixar, even though all their films are multiple directors, is also one of those that I would go to no matter what because they put out such great work.  Wall-E and Up are two of my favorite films of all time.  Lately their films have been some of their weakest efforts.  That brings me to Brave.

Brave is a story about Marida, a Princess who is somewhat of a tom boy.  This upsets her mother who wants her to be proper and act like a lady.  Marida is destined to marry a first born son from one of the separate clans in the area.  Marida however does not want this, she wants to pick herself.  Well, that’s reasonable. Right?  Oh well, that leads to Marida finding a witch that, as the trailer leads, helps change her fate.  That furthers the plot and goes into some interesting directions, but the film doesn’t try anything new with their female lead.

Before this film the most well developed female character at Pixar was Jesse from Toy Story 2.  This is the first Pixar feature that has a female lead when every other time they have been secondary characters.  When I first heard this I was excited and I thought that Pixar was taking a chance on something new.  Most of Pixar’s stories when explained sound kind of ridiculous, but the majority of them turn out to be great.  This film however does not take any chances and doesn’t try anything new with the ‘girl coming of age story.’  Despite the unoriginality of the characters and the story of the film, it is not a bad one.  The story is fun, there are some good jokes in the movie, some scenes are touching and there is one part of the plot that when it comes up it is really enjoyable.

Another low point is that the themes of the film are trying to explore are interesting, but not explored to there entirety.  This is because the film is too short.  The running time is less than one and a half hours.  This film is trying to look for so many things like maturity, family, revenge, marriage and fate and it tries to explore all of them in that short amount of time.

The highlight of the film is the visual effects.  Previous films like Wall-E, Up and Finding Nemo looked beautiful and the creators really took advantage of the world they have created.  Brave might look the greatest when it comes to the Pixar films.  The forest looks like a forest and makes you want to visit that land, while the castle that Marida lives in is stunning and looks like a real castle.

Brave is an average story from the creators of Pixar and while still enjoyable it makes me nervous for what is to come with Pixar.  However the film is still worth checking out.